澳大利亚学者 理查森(GRAHAM RICHARDSON)
【环球网综合报道】中国要把澳大利亚变成木偶国?看到这种“中国过敏症”言论,你也许会“呵呵”一过。然而去年底,澳大利亚查理斯特大学(Charles Sturt University)教授汉密尔顿(Clive Hamilton)还真写了一本名为《无声的入侵:中国如何把澳大利亚变成木偶国》(Silent Invasion: How China Is Turning Australia into a Puppet State)的书,详述了中国影响力渗入澳洲。
虽然澳大利亚近来时不时出现对华不友好言论,但澳大利亚人是否对其买账呢?一名澳大利亚学者不干了,近日撰文反驳。
2月28日,澳大利亚学者 理查森(GRAHAM RICHARDSON)在《澳大利亚人报》发表题为《《无声的入侵》作者把我们当傻子(Clive Hamilton is treating us as mugs)》的文章,他在文章中批驳了作者的观点,认为作者把他们当作傻子和孩子对待,并表示把中国视为“敌人”的想法简直是疯了。
以下为文章摘编:
任何指责像凯尔(Bob Carr)和基廷(Paul Keating)这类人是中国影响力代理人的人,都知道自己陷入一场斗争。当他成为一个荒谬古怪的人,最糟的是,当他成了一名愚蠢的爱表现的人时,他真应该好好想一想,并且闭上嘴,把他的笔束之高阁。
作者笔下,基廷的罪是他主持了一场澳大利亚中国商业论坛的事实。试图促进与我们最大的贸易伙伴进行更多的贸易,在我看来是最符合澳大利亚利益的。
凯尔试图敦促澳大利亚实行独立的外交政策也是明智的。我们不必在外交政策的每个方面都言听计从地跟随美国。谈到中国,任何智商在50以上、理智的澳大利亚人都知道 ,现在以及在可预见的未来,澳大利亚在经济上都需要中国的合作。
在《无声的入侵:中国如何把澳大利亚变成木偶国》这本书的第22页,作者写道:“中国正在利用虚假的历史来定位自己,从而在未来对澳大利亚有所控制”。我五岁时第一次听说‘黄祸’(yellow peril)正从中国席卷而来。位于悉尼赫斯特维尔南部的圣拉斐尔小学当时由慈善修女会主持,安妮特修女警告二班学生:中国人来了。面对即将来临的“侵略”,我吓得一周没有睡觉。在我五岁时修女们可能会让我想到的,并没有延续到后来63年的人生经验中。澳大利亚人可以比大多数人更好地察觉癔病似的废话。汉密尔顿把我们当作傻子和孩子对待。
不顾所有实证研究的说法,汉密尔顿的中国/澳大利亚“朋友们”就足以让他断言“澳大利亚有超过10万至20万华人忠于中国人民共和国”。
我知道澳大利亚的英国人在英国与澳大利亚比赛时总是为他们的老家欢呼。我认识克罗地亚人和塞尔维亚人,意大利人和希腊人,他们也是这样做的,但不意味着他们是间谍或不忠诚的公民。
说到虚伪,汉密尔顿甚至和我们的总理不相上下。让我们来看看他对民主的看法。他在书的第213页上写道:“当我研究带动这个国家辩论的各种’中国之友’的观点时,有一件事让我感到震惊 – 有些人如此不看重民主”。这般爱国立场挑动起灵魂,吓倒了相应的势力。然而,其价值观却被这样的事实削弱了——2007年,他在博客上提出,在气候变化问题上或许应该停止民主。
我要说明的是,除了与那个参与北京奥运会的男子共进午餐外,我在过去十多年中都没有与中国政府的代表或外交官谈过话。
但是,我们应该像无头苍蝇一样乱撞,把中国视为“敌人”的想法简直是疯了。澳大利亚这艘好船,应该把汉密尔顿,还有那些污染我们思想的其他垃圾一起扔下船。
(新闻背景:《无声的入侵:中国如何把澳大利亚变成木偶国》(Silent Invasion: How China Is Turning Australia into a Puppet State)一书的作者Clive Hamilton是澳大利亚查尔斯特大学的公共伦理学教授。他是一位活跃的公共知识分子,经常对媒体评论公共政策。据称本书详述了中国共产党的代理人在澳大利亚的活动,揭示中共对澳大利亚的渗透。)
Chinese agents are undermining Australia's sovereignty, Clive Hamilton's controversial new book claims
Thousands of agents of the Chinese state have integrated themselves into Australian public life — from the high spheres of politics, academia and business all the way down to suburban churches and local writers' groups — according to a controversial book to be published on Monday.
The book, Silent Invasion: How China Is Turning Australia into a Puppet State, is written by Clive Hamilton, professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University.
In it, he alleges that a systematic Chinese government campaign of espionage and influence peddling is leading to "the erosion of Australian sovereignty".
That erosion is caused, in part, by a recent wave of Chinese migration to Australia including "billionaires with shady histories and tight links to the [Chinese Communist] party, media owners creating Beijing mouthpieces, 'patriotic' students brainwashed from birth, and professionals marshalled into pro-Beijing associations set up by the Chinese embassy," Professor Hamilton writes.
ABC News has been given a pre-publication copy of the book, which is being published in the middle of widening public debate over China's influence in Australia and concerns Beijing has thousands of unofficial "spies" in the country.
Those concerns were given some credence by the Government late last year, when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced he planned to enact new foreign interference laws to counter such espionage.
Mr Turnbull used strong language at the time, paraphrasing a famous Chinese communist slogan to say Australia would "stand up" to foreign governments meddling in Australian affairs.
The book will cause particular angst among Australia's political class.
It lists more than 40 former and sitting Australian politicians who Professor Hamilton says are doing the work of China's totalitarian Government, if sometimes unwittingly. Many are household names.
"[Former prime ministers Bob] Hawke and [Paul] Keating, when their political careers ended they went on to become reliable friends of China, shuttling between the two countries, mixing with the top cadres and tycoons," Professor Hamilton writes.
"While Hawke's China links proved lucrative, Keating was more interested in influence."
Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek.
An entire chapter, titled Beijing Bob, is dedicated to former Labor foreign minister and NSW premier Bob Carr.
The chapter accuses Mr Carr of "pushing an aggressive pro-China stance in Labor caucuses".
Professor Hamilton chronicles Mr Carr's 2015 appointment as the founding director of the Australia-China Research Institute (ACRI) at the University of Technology, Sydney.
ACRI was created with a $1.8m donation from billionaire property developer Huang Xiangmo, who has donated millions to Australian politicians and has been described in the book as being one of Beijing's most powerful agents of influence in Australia.
"Huang sits at the centre of a web of influence that extends throughout politics, business and the media," Professor Hamilton writes.
"Let's call the Australia-China Research Institute for what it is," Professor Hamilton writes.
"A Beijing-backed propaganda outfit disguised as a legitimate research institute, whose ultimate objective is to advance the CCP's [Chinese Communist Party's] influence in Australian policy and political circles, an organisation hosted by a university whose commitment to academic freedom and proper practice is clouded by money hunger, and directed by an ex-politician suffering from relevance deprivation syndrome who cannot see what a valuable asset he has become for Beijing."
Mr Huang denies his donations and influence within Australian society are connected to the Chinese Government, describing the allegations as innuendo and racism.
Mr Carr, who declined to comment for this article, has previously said ACRI took a "positive and optimistic view" of the Australia-China relationship and was "independent" and "non-partisan". He rejected any suggestion he was working with or for the CCP or its proxies.
The book also details a list of Chinese-Australian academics whom Professor Hamilton says are allowing the transfer of potentially national security-significant research — in sensitive areas such as space, artificial intelligence and computer engineering — from Australian universities to the Chinese military.
Silent Invasion appears to have also divided Australian Parliament, with Labor and Liberal members of a classified parliamentary committee at odds over whether they should provide legal cover for the book.
Plans were hatched recently by members of Parliament's intelligence oversight body, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS), to publish a digital copy of the book.
The release would have been the first time the Australian parliament published a book in its entirety — therefore granting it a limited form of parliamentary privilege — in an effort to protect the information it contains from legal attack.
While Liberal members of the committee broadly supported publication of the book, the majority of Labor committee members did not, arguing it was not appropriate for the Australian Parliament to give the book its imprimatur.
Silent Invasion was provided to the committee in a submission as part of an inquiry into Mr Turnbull's foreign interference laws.
The book's release by the committee would have been seen as an inflammatory act by Beijing, already smarting from Mr Turnbull's announcement.
Co-opting God
In another section of the book, Professor Hamilton describes a curious relationship between Chinese Christian churches in Australia and the atheist Chinese Communist Party, which has a history of supressing Christianity at home.
He refers to classified Chinese Government reports which instruct Chinese officials to infiltrate overseas churches that have Chinese congregations. "They instruct cadres to monitor, infiltrate and 'sinify' overseas Chinese churches by actively promoting the CCP's concepts of Chineseness and 'spiritual love'."
In 2014, he notes, the website of the Canberra Chinese Methodist Church included a statement which linked the rise of the CCP to God's will: "The awe-inspiring righteousness of Xi Jinping, the President of the People's Republic of China, and the rise of a great nation that is modern China are part of God's plan, predestination and blessing."
Many Chinese church pastors believe their congregations have been penetrated by Chinese Government cadres, Professor Hamilton writes.
"One pastor told me: 'There are lots of communists in our church community.' He guessed that around a quarter or a third are or have been communists. Some join the church for the companionship, some for the social contacts; others are the [Chinese Government's] assets."
The manuscript also alleges that people connected to the Chinese Government have infiltrated Australia's writing scene. It states that a group called the Australian-Chinese Writer's Association was recently taken over by "pro-Beijing forces".
Professor Hamilton describes how well-known Australian writing forums such as the Melbourne Writers Festival and Writers Victoria have unwittingly hosted local Chinese writing groups operating under Beijing's control and "whose aim is to spread into Australian society the CCP worldview, one that is extremely intolerant of artistic license and dissenting views."
A 'landmark win' for China
Silent Invasion is so controversial it almost didn't make it to publication. It was due to be released late last year by Allen & Unwin, but the publisher baulked over concerns it would be targeted by Beijing and its proxies in Australia. Melbourne University Press also turned down the book.
That led Professor Hamilton — the author of half-a-dozen books about climate change, politics and economics — to hit out at what he described as an attempt by the CCP to muzzle public debate in Australia.
"[This is a] landmark win for the Chinese Communist Party's campaign to suppress critical voices," Professor Hamilton wrote to Allen & Unwin chief executive Robert Gorman at the time.
The book was recently acquired by Hardie Grant, run by Sandy Grant, who in the 1980s published the controversial memoir of former British intelligence officer Peter Wright. The publication occurred against the wishes of the British government, which was trying to censor the book.
Mr Grant told the ABC he was aware publishing Silent Invasion may invite the attention of the Chinese Government, but he hoped it would not be serious. "This is a debate being held at the ABC, the New York Times, the London Times; we are just one voice in that, we are hardly a serious thorn in the Chinese Government's side," he said.
Professor Brady has spent her career researching China's global influence and her 2017 paper, Magic Weapons, caused global waves when it revealed how deeply China had penetrated NZ's Government.